


Deeper Than Thought

by floweringjudas (manipulant)



Category: A Separate Peace - John Knowles
Genre: First Kiss, Gen, M/M, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-27
Updated: 2011-12-27
Packaged: 2017-10-28 06:53:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/304993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manipulant/pseuds/floweringjudas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The proper person is your best pal. Which is what you are."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deeper Than Thought

**Author's Note:**

> While I did try to emulate Knowles's style as best I could, it is _damn_ hard to write two boys kissing that way. The first two paragraphs, the ones in italics, are taken from the actual book - I thought it might help to establish a context right off.

_The last words of Finny's usual nighttime monologue were, "I hope you're having a pretty good time here. I know I kind of dragged you away at the point of a gun, but after all you can't come to the shore with just anybody and you can't come by yourself, and at this teen-age period in life, the proper person is your best pal." He hesitated and then added, "which is what you are," and there was silence on his dune._

 _It was a courageous thing to say. Exposing a sincere emotion nakedly like that at the Devon School was the next thing to suicide. I should have told him then that he was my best friend also and rounded off what he had said. I started to; I nearly did. But something held me back. Perhaps I was stopped by that level of feeling, deeper than thought, which contains the truth._

 

After another minute or two of silence I heard him on the next dune, huffing out a breath as he shifted on the sand. It was itchy on the beach, grains were already getting into my clothes, but Finny's proclamation had made complaining about the night impossible. Part of me wondered if that was why he said it, a little. Looking back, I don't think this was true: at Devon we would've underlined that thought in our textbooks and labeled it "foreshadowing." The mark of a flawed character.

"'Night, Fin," I said, but he didn't answer. Behind us, back towards the boardwalk, the sky was brighter from the neon and clouds of cigarette smoke. There was a breeze flowing off of the water, over us, cooling my skin after the long day. Because of these and the rhythmed crash of waves in the near distance, it only took me minutes to fall asleep. It was the first time that had happened all summer.

 

Hours later I woke in a panic, and forgot where I was - the half-moon hovering over me seemed alien and too close to the Earth, invasive. Someone was clutching my shoulder and shaking, and my eternal internal clock and the position of the stars made me think, immediately, "Three o'clock."

"And all's well?" Finny's voice asked, clear as a bell and right beside my ear. I jumped, and realized a second later I must've said the time out loud. Beside me, Finny sat and smiled, looking only a little sleepy as he regarded me with a familiar mix of confusion and amused longsuffering on his face. "Something's rotten in the state of Denmark," he remarked, dropping onto his elbow beside me. The reflection of the half-full moon on the sand and water made it possible to see without squinting, and I could see the whites of his eyes and his teeth, and the dark tan of his skin. "That," he said, once he'd finished shifting in the sand, "is the first time in our long and tempestuous relationship I've heard you have a nightmare like that," he said. "You should've had them sooner in the term, it would've given our room a sense of mystery."

"Oh?" I couldn't remember any of it, only the first few seconds after waking; my heart was still going full-gallop.

"Brinker would have come searching for ghosts," Finny said, warming to his theme, grinning out at the dark sea. He stretched out beside me, feet pointed towards the encroaching waves. "Or the master of the house's crippled son! Our own little invalid."

"You woke me up from a nightmare and now you're calling me an invalid," I grumbled, still half-asleep. Of course Finny didn't care, he pressed on, determined to explore the idea now that he'd caught it.

"I could call you the loony wife in the attic," Finny offered, mouth breaking into a wide, pleased grin when I sat bolt upright on the sand and glared at him, silently demanding explanation. "You," he continued a minute later, positively _beaming_ with glee, "were saying _my name_."

My stomach sank against my spine, and I remember how there was a pregnant pause there, between us, where I could hear the waves crashing in the near distance and feel a tight, heavy ball of inexplicable guilt solidify inside me. Finny never told an outright lie, just a sideways one, and this one was so damning to both of us I knew it to be true. "I was not."

"You were," he said, and that beam had softened as he sprawled there, hovering beside me like a lazy nurse. For a moment I thought I could see pity in his expression, and a mix of wild horror and grief threatened to overwhelm me. I pulled a salty breath deep into my lungs and concentrated my eyes on the haphazard folds of my pants, and the sand that had collected in each of them.

Another minute later Finny put his hand on my back. This wasn't a comradely pat on the shoulderblade - that was familiar territory, Allied occupation. His palm rested on the center of my back, directly above my spine, and slid to the place where the curvature crested and broke - smack into a Maginot line. (Even now, I cannot separate Devon and Finny and war.) I had no idea what to say. "Don't look so scared," he advised me, not moving his hand. I eventually managed to glance over at him, and he hadn't moved, though his head was cocked to the side as he watched me, looking equal parts satisfied and concerned. "I won't tell, of course."

"Of course," I said, intent on following it up with a _"because there's nothing to tell,"_ but Finny startled me out of the rest of the sentence by sitting up, himself, and brushing the sand off of his trousers.

"I guess I'll have to lend you the pink shirt, now," he sighed, a smile tugging at his lips as he brushed the last of the grit off his clothes. "You can have it Tuesdays and Thursdays and every other Sunday afternoon," he offered, and before I could come up with a suitably flip reply, he startled me again as he slipped forward. His lips were suddenly dry and warm and pressed against my cheek, and he moved away a few seconds later, crablike, gazing down at the sand. I could still feel the press of him, an indentation left on my skin, and in that second I finally comprehended the reasons for Finny's declaration hours ago and my own silence. Their motivations were the same.

I watched him curiously for a couple of seconds; it was the first time I'd seen Finny actually look _nervous_. After a while, he opened his mouth.

"...I get Christmas and Easter too," I said suddenly, beating him to the punch. He stopped and looked up, and for a second I felt a frisson of triumph at having got one over on him, having been first. It didn't happen often. Beyond us, the overnight lights of the boardwalk were still shining just past the dunes, and thus backlit, the provocative line of Finny's crooked smile could be easily read. The humor and hope I saw there filled me with a sort of sweet terror, and I think now that Finny must have felt the same quickening of pulse, constriction in his lungs as I did. I think, now, that it was as new to him as it was to me.

For a moment, there with the sound of waves behind me and the depth of Fin's eyes in front, I felt as if I'd drown.

I remember the last quick breath I took, and how I closed my eyes as Finny leaned in.


End file.
